Shallow 75g SPS Build

KingTriton1

KingTriton1

New member
So Ive been wanting to post a thread for sometime now, but have been a bit lazy. I have been out of the hobby for a good 4 years as my daughter consumed a lot of my attention. Now that she is older I can finally find some time to play.

The tank's dimensions are 60'' x 24'' x 12. I was originally going to setup this up as a frag tank, but after the tank came in I really enjoyed the shallowness of the tank and realized that having the tank set up as a display would be something Id like to explore.

My wife didn't want the tank in the house "shocker" so I managed to renovate my storage area into a fish room. Im about mid-way into this and took a lot of pics so far. On a side note sorry for the amount of pics there was a lot done for this.

I love suggestions, so feel free to give me your input (likes and dislikes) on this thread.
 
Here is my storage room prior to renovating it. I did ALL this myself and have to admit I'm a bit exhausted, which has stalled my timing on the setup.



 
The room is 9.5' by 9.5'

Excluding tearing down the shelves and moving all the equipment out of the room, I felt the window was the first thing that I needed to deal with.



I removed/insulated the window before my masonry guy came to patch but the wall.
 
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To my surprise insulation was not present. So I now have to remove all 4 walls of sheetrock. This was not calculated in the budget :(

On the bright side of things, this made my electrical work MUCH easier.

I am setting up my 75g SPS build in a different location from where I want my final future 96'' x 36'' x 28'' tank to be. This will allow me for an easier transition in the near future. Because of all the sheetrock work I wanted to prepare for this tank as I might as well get it over with now. I decided to add 3 20amp GFCI breakers to each of the circuits. Each outlet is designated to its on breaker without feeding off of any other outlet.





Now back to my original tank build (Sorry... Im a dreamer lol). I have set up two separate circuits for my 75G. This tank will be on right next to the door opening.

 
So since this was originally a storage room without A/C I decided to run some additional duct work off of my side laundry room.



All this work was for nothing unfortunately... My A/C unit is at the complete opposite end of the house leaving the flow rather weak. Even though my A/C was set on 70 it still left my room at a constant 85 degrees (summer in LA is pretty intense).

This left me with two options. Either install a thru wall a/c unit or a mini duct split system.
After doing a bit of research I later realized that a thru wall wasn't an option as the a/c unit couldn't reach the proper depth needed through the exterior wall. So I ordered the mini duct split. Which was another item that I did not include into my budget :(
 
The mini duct slit system came out looking rather nice (given the cost it should!). I ended up removing 1 of the 3 20amp circuit lines off of the "dream tank" as I felt it was overkill anyways. I use this circuit to power my A/C.



This required me to drill a 3'' hole into my insulation through the exterior brink. Luckily, my father had a hammer drill. Lots of additional hammer and chisel work involved that night. It came out great without any hiccups surprisingly.

 
Since my tank was still in the process of being made I decided to get a head start and get some live rock going.

After receiving the live rock, me and my wife kept hearing this constant noise coming out 29g tank that the rock was in. After some research I realized that I was dealing with either a Mantis or Pistol. So I went to searching and looky looky......

 
An hour later I we heard the noise again! So back to searching..

I had found another Mantis!

10 mins after THAT I heard the noise again.. You've got to be s***ing me!

Long story short, I pulled out an additional 2 pistol shrimp. All of this came out of just 20lbs of live rock (crazy, but I knew what I was getting myself into). My wife thought it was hilarious.
I used a hammer and chisel, as trapping these buggers was honestly just not worth it for 20lbs of live rock. At the end of the day I was left with rumble rock :(...
 
I chose to go with a SRO 1000int for my skimmer as my tank will not be heavily stocked with fish maybe 3 or 4. I wanted to make a stand for it out of acrylic, but had never worked with acrylic cement before. I decided to give it a try since I have some time to kill. I chose to use 1'' acrylic rods for the legs on the stand.



It came out great. I was surprise by how easy this was.
 
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Since this worked so easily, I decided I would salvage the remaining rods as a handle for my 10 gallon ATO tank. I just used some white kyrlon fusion to cover the top and the sides of the tank.



As you can see I made a small opening on the ATO handles plate for my Tunze 3155 to operate.
 
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There is a bit of a disconnect from the next pictures posted as my cell phone broke in the middle of this transition, which had all my picture stored in it :(.

So I finally got my stand which I had custom made as I was way over worked at this point and really didn't have the time to make my own. Did I mention that I had a newborn a week before the tank arrived? lol

Sanding and painting the stand was probably the hardest thing thus far. Anywho, hears a few pics of the tank set up.







 
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I ended up removing the sump entirely and plan on replumbing everything for four reasons.

1. I set up the sump with acrylic baffles, which I just don't really care for. (I'm just too picky)

2. I did not leave enough room for me to change out my filter socks.

3. The filter floss before I reach my Seachem Matrix is a pain to constantly rinse weekly.
I will need to make this section larger. I like having the filter sponge in my display for quarantine purposes. Majority of the detritus will be removed from my filter sock before it reaches the sponge, which will further help at not creating a nitrate issue.

4. Most importantly, I do not like having my electronic equipment next to my aquarium.
Ive decided to run all of my equipment into my landry room where it will meet my Apex.
 
I will be running all on my power equipment from my side laundry room inside a cabinet for the discreetness.



If you notice in the picture above I had turned the breaker box around so that it was facing the laundry area instead of my fish room. I did not want my breaker box in a room with humidity


I ended up drilling a 3'' hole where I will be connecting a 2'' bulkhead between the rooms. This will easily allow me to run 10+ cords through it. I may drill another hole just for s***s and giggles :)





The biggest grip for me is having to redrill the new holes in the attic and having to re route the romex cables from the box below. Luckily my back wall is removable, which will allow easier access. I am still keeping the outlets next to the tank for extra plug ins. However, the main feed will be from the laundry room going to the outlets next to the aquarium

 
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Thanks guys.. I am planning on possibly having the aquarium up and running by next weekend hopefully.... I wanted to go ahead and set up my Tunze battery backup. I don't care for their wire connectors as I can't seem to find the adapter that goes over the exposed wire before screwing in for the connection. I decided just to cut the wire connectors off and install my own butt split wire connector. This will be more reliable as the wires on both ends will be clamped. Heres how I set these up for my return pump and powerheads.



These were the only items needed for the set up along with some 16g wire that I got from Amazon

https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B00BWS7HY6/ref=ya_aw_oh_pii




As you can see I striped all the ends and removed the original connector



Finished

 
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Im using a 40 breeder for my sump. I had the glass cut but still needed to trim the glass a bit in order for the baffle to sit flush with the glass. It didn't require much removal in glass to make this work.







 
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